


for you, for me (giving and accepting)

by unprofessionalbard



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, but like only if you consider juno's whole life to be the hurt, canon typical drinking and alcohol, is probably closer but i'm not great with genres
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unprofessionalbard/pseuds/unprofessionalbard
Summary: Letting someone do things for you is not always a weakness. And draining yourself doing things for others is not always a strength.( written for ihavenotaclue on tumblr for the penumbra podcast 2017 gift exchange )





	for you, for me (giving and accepting)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [availedobscurity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/availedobscurity/gifts).



“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Benton. His voice was quiet, careful so as not to carry beyond the confines of the twins’ room. Juno stifled a grimace when Benten pulled the cloth bandage tighter around the nasty cut on his arm. Benten, thankfully, didn’t notice, too wrapped up in his work and his clear irritation with Juno. “Mick can handle himself.”

Juno shrugged, and shifted his weight, looking out the tiny window at the night sky as opposed to at his brother. There was barely enough light coming through for the twins to see each other, but their eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and neither wanted to draw the attention or the ire of Sarah Steel. 

She wouldn’t like to be woken up. 

She also wouldn’t like that Juno had been fighting again. 

“Juno, I’m serious.” Benten sighed, then wrapped the bandage around Juno’s arm a couple more times before tucking it under itself, for lack of another way to hold it on Juno’s arm. Juno winced, and Benton saw, and winced too, a sympathetic mirror of Juno’s expression. After another moment of no response from Juno, Benton mumbled, “Dickhead.” Juno turned his head from the window, brow furrowed. 

“Huh?”

“Made you look.” Benten’s face broke into a grin, and Juno suppressed his own, hitting Benten in the shoulder with his good arm. Benten hit him right back. “I’m trying to talk to you. You can’t just get all weird and stoic every single time.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.” 

“Yes you do.”

“ _No_ , I _don’t_.”

“ _Yes_ , you d—”

The floor a few rooms away creaked, and both twins’ eyes snapped to the door, light hearted bickering drawn to a close instantly. They waited one minute, two, three, before deciding it was probably the building settling. Old Town buildings do that— or rather, they get one step closer to collapse. Regardless, Benten’s voice was even quieter when he spoke again. 

“I’m just saying, Juno, one day you’re gonna get your ass kicked real bad, and for no good reason.”

“Well, someone’s gotta.” It was a poor attempt at humor, but Benten barked a laugh anyway. 

Juno barely slept that night. Neither did Benten, although he was much more obvious about it than Juno, tossing and turning. It was several hours, but eventually, Benten spoke again. 

“Juno.” 

“What, Ben?”

It was silent for so long that Juno almost thought his brother had fallen asleep, but he drew in a breath, and then said, “What do you want to do when we get out of here?”

“What?”

“When we get out of Old Town.”

Juno wanted to shoot it down. He probably would have, if it had been light out. He didn’t have the energy to worry about the future in the daylight. But the dark was quiet, and comforting, and he didn’t have to see Benten’s face. Here, in the dark, around just his brother, he could spare a couple moments to hope. 

“What do _you_ want to do?” He expected Benten to tease him, comment on how he was dodging, but he didn’t. 

“I want to travel. I don’t wanna stay on Mars.” 

“Yeah?”

“And I wanna hear stories. Good stories.”

“...Like Andromeda?” Juno’s voice was cautious, but it’s the only story that they both think is good. Although to Juno, after everything, it just seemed hollow. The story itself didn’t matter when the telling of it just made him bitter about his mother, her job, Old Town...

“Like Andromeda I guess,” said Benten. “Anything that’s not like Mick’s stories.”

“I like those.”

“You have bad taste.”

“Hey!”

They fell silent after that, leaving Juno alone with his thoughts. Travelling. He couldn’t decide how he felt about that— he wouldn’t really call Mars home, not anymore, but it’s the only one he’d ever known. 

“I want to be a police officer,” said Juno, into the darkness, unsure if Benten was even still awake.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think they must just… not have enough people, or don’t know how it’s like in— here— and I could do something… something good, I think.” His explanation stumbled and meandered, and sounded even more stupid when he said it out loud. The HCPD had to just be oblivious to the things that Juno lived every day. Juno screwed up in his face in an anticipation of a biting remark from Benten that never came. 

“I think if anyone could do something good in the police it’d be you.”

He shouldn’t have anticipated. Ben was too nice. 

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Tell you what. You fix up Hyperion City, and then on your vacation days, we go to the Outer Rim and see what’s out there.”

It wasn’t even an impossible dream, really, but the idea made Juno’s chest ache. He wished, and in the comfort of the dark, it was so easy to pretend wishes could be real one day. Was he humoring Benten or humoring himself?

“Deal.”

Benten hummed quietly, and Juno heard him roll over again, heard his breathing get slow and even. He decided then that he was wrong. Mars wasn’t the only home he’d ever known. His brother was. And he would let the thought fade in daylight, but that night, he rolled over to his side and let himself think _we’re gonna get out_. 

Juno wondered for years if everything after that would’ve hurt less if he’d told Benzaiten to shut up and go to sleep.

* * *

The last time he talks to Sasha, they’re with Mick, and Juno comments, drunk as hell, that Mick is lucky he’s an only child. That if he wasn’t, he probably would be by now, because that’s just what happens to people who associate with Juno Steel, including Juno himself. They end up only children. Lonely children. 

It’s not what drives Sasha to stop talking to him for fifteen years. But the look on her face does make the time sting more.

* * *

He joins police academy and gets out of Old Town, partly for Benzaiten and partly for himself. He joins the HCPD, mostly for Benzaiten and minutely for himself.

It doesn’t go well. Reality bites, and the HCPD does not consist of the superheroes and do-gooders he enthused to his brother about as a kid, in the comfort of the dark and the hope of not knowing. The HCPD isn’t here to fix things at all, and they never will be.

He stops doing things for Ben. He starts looking for someone else to do things for.

* * *

Love is blinding. Juno doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Young love was even worse— Juno was never known for his good choices. And young love kissed him and said he was smart and gorgeous, said they’d be in the honeymoon phase forever and Juno knew it was too good to be true but he kissed back anyway. It took awhile, but he started to hope about the future again. 

Hope didn’t stop young love from leaving him at the altar, though.

* * *

Diamond asked him with no preamble. They two of the them were on the couch, Juno reading a book, Diamond painting their nails. Juno flipped a page and glanced up, Diamond finished a nail and glanced up, and they smiled when they locked eyes and went back to their own tasks. 

Two minutes later, Diamond stretched out their hand in front of them, admiring their handiwork. Comfortable silence hung in the air, and then Diamond dropped their hand. 

“Hey Juno.”

“Hm?”

“Marry me.” 

Juno looked up again, up at Diamond’s bright smile, half joking. He thought about being married— or about the concept of being married. The general, nebulous thought of having someone around, always, trusting someone. Trusting Diamond.

And damn him, he liked it. 

“Sure.”

“Wait, really?” 

“No, I was joking,” Juno deadpanned, and then laughed at Diamond’s fake pout. “Are you really asking?”

“No— Yes! I am, I just wanted it to be better!” Diamond blew on their nails, and then stood, waving a hand at Juno when he raised his eyebrows. “Hold on. Stay here.” The spot they were in seconds ago was deserted at light speed. Juno could hear clattering from the bedroom, and suppressed a laugh at a loud _CLACK_ followed by Diamond cursing. 

They were back in a few minutes, holding a small box in careful hands. It wasn’t a ring box, and when Diamond got down on one knee in front of him, Juno could see instantly that they’d just grabbed a matchbox. 

“Did you just dump all the matches out?”

“Juno Steel,” Diamond said, suppressing a grin, which meant they did, and they were probably just on a pile on the bed. 

“You know we’re gonna have to put those back in the box, right?”

“Juno Steel!” Diamond repeated, louder, voice cracking under the pressure of trying not to laugh. “Juno. Love of my life. Decent lay.” Juno snorted, and Diamond pressed on, louder still. “You’re amazing and brilliant and I want to stay with you in whatever shitty apartment we can afford together for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?” They slid open the matchbox, revealing a ring. Juno recognized it as one of Diamond’s from their jewelry box; he’d seen them wear it before. 

“I already said sure.”

“Pretend this is romantic, Juno. For me.” 

Diamond’s smile shone like the sun, eyes wide, pleading. _For me_. Juno made a show of rolling his eyes, but couldn’t keep a straight face. While it wasn’t the most romantic proposal, it was probably the closest they were going to get. And it was Diamond, so he could pretend that a bad quality ring in a matchbox was romantic for them. _They_ were the romance anyway. 

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” said Juno. He let Diamond slide the ring— silver (probably fake), inlaid with their namesake (definitely fake, but much more real looking)— onto his finger, let Diamond pull him in for a kiss, tugged them both into a giggly tangle on the couch. 

“Sucks that you wasted all the nice things about me on the proposal. You’re not gonna have any vows,” said Juno, and it made Diamond laugh, and kiss him again. 

Juno found that he didn’t mind doing things for Diamond.

* * *

“A whiskey for the lady in red.”

Juno pounds it back. His wedding dress seems to gain a thousand pounds, weighing down on his shoulders. It feels like he’s wearing a ghost. He has a lot of whiskeys that night. He gets kicked out for causing a scene and nurses his last bottle of beer on the curb a few blocks away. No one stops. He doesn’t expect them to. That’s Hyperion for you. 

He leaves the bottle and tries to leave the memories on the curb. He tucks away his wedding gown and doesn’t think about why he won’t just throw it away. 

Diamond didn’t have any vows after all. 

He starts looking for someone else to do things for. It’s getting to be a habit, but Juno does habits well.

* * *

It was stupid to turn down Alessandra like that for a man who he really, after everything, barely knew. Not that he knew Alessandra any better, just one case each but...

God, he didn’t know. He didn’t know why he spent nights up thinking about Nureyev, didn’t know why he kept turning his back on the memories only to trip on them immediately afterwards. 

It wouldn’t work. And Juno knew it wouldn’t work. Off the top of his head, Juno could think of hundreds of reasons why not, the most important and pressing being that Nureyev was nowhere to be found. He’d left Juno with a name and nothing else. Left him with a heartache and feelings he didn’t want. 

( Feelings that he couldn’t tell if he wanted or not, didn’t want to want because what would he do if he admitted to himself that he wanted to fall for Nureyev? )

He wanted…

( another kiss. more time. a person to dedicate time and energy to. a promise that if nureyev came back he wouldn’t leave again. ) 

What did he want?

* * *

Maybe it was wrong of him to leave Nureyev like that. Maybe it was selfish and self absorbed and poorly thought out and unfair. But he was just so, so tired of people leaving him first.

* * *

He’s out of people to do things for. He’s given and given and done and done and he’s not even sure if he’s a real person after that, or just a collection of favours and blame. He doesn’t know what to do if he’s not living for someone, something, dying for someone, something. 

Who is he now? He’s not a son, not a brother, not a student, not a cop, not a fiance, not a lover, not a P.I. He’s barely even a survivor. 

_You didn’t die. You didn’t let go. And that’s the hardest thing there is._

He wishes Alessandra hadn’t felt proud of him. And then he wishes he didn’t wish that because of course Juno Steel would turn this into a pity party for himself. 

_It’s all about you – what you can’t do, what the world did to you, how you can’t do it on your own._

The venn diagram of _selfless_ and _selfish_ is a circle. 

Juno doesn’t want to look for anyone else to do things for.

* * *

It’s Nureyev who speaks first when Juno finds him. When he finds Juno. When he put himself in a place where he knew Juno would find him. The distinction between those is not clear. But here they are, face to face. The few feet between them feel like a bottomless chasm, and when Nureyev speaks, Juno feels like his stomach has been hollowed out. 

“I’m sorry,” says Nureyev, “Juno I’m so, so sorry.” 

And Juno doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand why Nureyev doesn’t hate him, doesn’t understand why he’s not making _Juno_ apologize, doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand—

“Peter,” starts Juno, but stops, shaken by his own use of Nureyev’s first name. “Peter,” he says again and reaches, blindly, stumbling, and Peter Nureyev catches him, puts his hands on Juno’s cheeks while Juno wraps his around Peter’s waist. He wants to apologize, he wants to run, and he knows, he knows, maybe he’s always known, what too good to be true feels like. 

But he wants to do something for Peter. Something, anything. 

“Peter,” he starts again, “Peter I’m so—”

“No,” says Peter, “No, no, no, Juno, don’t apologize.”

“What am I supposed to do then?” It’s meant to be deadpan, and funny, but it sounds desperate to Juno’s ears. He clenches the fabric of Peter’s jacket so tightly his hands hurt. 

“Just let me.” 

Juno chokes back a response and a sob. Guilt coils like a cobra in his stomach. He should be apologizing, he should be doing things for Peter, he shouldn’t just stand here, trying not to cry. His lungs are too big for his ribcage. Peter’s fingers dance on his temples, gentle and soft, his expression a reverence Juno doesn’t know how to process. So he doesn’t. He clutches tighter and buries his head in the crook of Peter’s shoulder. Peter’s saying more, he’s explaining himself, but for the moment, Juno doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything but the contact points between him and Peter. 

_Just let me._

Whatever hollowed out his gut has filled it back up with shattered glass and sharp knives.

 _Just let me. Just let me. Just let me._

It takes everything he has right now, but he does.

* * *

Love doesn’t heal in and of itself. It’s not a magic solution that will cure you of all ailments and leave you shiny and new. And it’s easy to get caught up and not realize it; easy to jump into the gold rush before realizing you’ve struck iron pyrite and not gold. 

But it can be better. An extended hand to help you pull yourself up. A kind word when you can’t think of any. Love can be soft, and beautiful, and supportive, and it can give you the bandages you need to dress your own wounds. 

It’s not a solution. But it can soothe an aching heart and it promises a right now, and sometimes, that is all you have.

* * *

Peter gives and gives and gives. 

And what’s more, he never wants credit. Flowers happen to be delivered or Juno happens to forget his wallet at home when they go out. It’s fitting for his line of work, Juno supposes— Peter Nureyev doesn’t leave his name anywhere. Juno leaves his name on everything he does. 

Peter leaves his name on only Juno.

Juno asks him why. Why he gives like he does, why he won’t ever accept Juno doing things in return. Peter laughs, because of course he does, because what else would he do, and asks Juno if he really thinks he hasn’t already given Peter enough. Juno doesn’t know how to answer that.

So Peter keeps giving.

And slowly, agonizingly, Juno learns to accept.

* * *

It begins like this. 

It’s 2am on a Thursday night and Juno has a hellish amount of work to do and can’t sleep. It’s 2:14am on a Thursday night and Peter wakes up to find Juno at the desk and not in the bed. And it’s 2:15 am when Juno hears Peter’s footsteps on the floor. 

“Didn’t mean to wake you up,” says Juno.

Peter yawns and shakes his head. “You didn’t. I got up to get a glass of water.” He doesn’t ask what Juno is doing up. “Come back to bed.”

“I can’t. I’ve almost got—”

“Juno.” Peter puts his hand on Juno’s, and Juno finally looks up from his work. “Your work will still be there in the morning. And what use are you going to be to anyone if you can’t keep your eyes open?”

“Not an issue. I’ve got plenty of practice not sleeping.”

“Juno.” Peter’s voice is gentle, still coated in sleep. “Please. You need to let yourself sleep. Come back to bed with me.” 

Peter gives. And Juno is still scared of taking, still trying to do as much as he can himself. He’s still struggling to accept when Peter gives, and in the daylight, he would probably refuse. But the dark is quiet, comforting, and he can see the concern written plainly on Peter’s face. In the dark, around Peter, he can release the tension in his shoulders and sigh. 

“Okay.”

Peter kisses him, and Juno kisses back, and it feels how a clear night sky looks. Like they’re exchanging the stars and Juno doesn’t have to worry if he’s taking too much and not giving enough. 

It ends like this. 

It is 2:17am on a Thursday night when Juno lets Peter drag him back to bed. Peter wastes a minute or so grabbing his glass of water, and then he kisses Juno’s forehead and pulls on Juno’s hand and Juno follows him. The bed becomes a tangle of limbs where they curl together and Juno’s chest is full. Something in him is going to overflow, and it takes him a moment to place that it’s because he _wants_. He wants so badly to love, to be loved, to hope, to struggle through bad days on even the off chance that he’ll stumble on another moment like this. That he’ll _make_ a moment like this.

Recovery is standing where you’ve stood a thousand times before and saying _no, I will not back down_ , it’s dragging yourself through the same mud again and again and again because the alternative is to drown in it. It’s loving with fists raised and teeth bared. 

It’s 2:21 am, and for better or for worse, Juno hopes for the future again. 

**Author's Note:**

> i think a lot about that whole bit in day that wouldn't die about juno always doing things for himself and how that fits with juno constantly doing things for other people. tbh im almost positive a lot of this is because i absorb every text post about the penumbra and then blur what's actually canon and what's fanon, also i'm pretty sure a bunch of this is either already jossed (like im pretty sure diamond had something to do w/the hcpd djhsgd) or will be come march but. i had fun doing it so all's well that ends well! 
> 
> happy holidays + new years!!!
> 
> find me on tumblr @crewmanjeeter


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